One of my favourite things about camp is the chance to play games that normally wouldn’t work when the gym is busy with regular classes — especially “all camp games”!
An All-Camp Game is exactly what it sounds — it involves every camper and uses the entire available gym space. In traditional camps, these are often called Wide Games (in case you want to continue your research after this).
Here in Ontario Canada, our Spring Break always happens in mid-March — so we get to go all out for St. Patrick’s Day!
It’s become a tradition to run a program (very literally) called “Hunt for Gold”. The goal is to help a friendly Leprechaun – whose lost all the gold that was in his pot at the end of the rainbow!
We have two versions of this game — a simple version for younger campers, and a more complicated version for older kids.
Here is how you play:
LET’S PLAY: HUNT FOR GOLD
Before the game starts:
- Gather materials:
- an empty pot (or bucket)
- plastic coins or spray painted rocks (we usually have about 60 pieces for a group of 20 kids)
- a leprechaun outfit (optional, but HIGHLY encouraged for maximum fun)…. see below for inspiration!
- Prep the space:
- hide the gold around the play area (make sure the kids aren’t peeking)
- set your own rules according to your space/kids, but we mad sure the gold was never out of reach for our shortest camper and never hidden in the pit (duh!) and coins were always at least 75% visible (so never totally hidden under anything).
Playing the Game:
- THE SEGUE…
- Gather the kids and tell them about your friend Lisa the Leprechaun. She love rainbows, lucky charms cereal and most of all, filling up her pot of gold! She just called me in a panic because her gold was stolen, but she caught a lead that said the thief might have stashed all the gold at our gym. She asked if we could take a look around to see if we can find it. Would you like to help see if we can find Lisa’s gold??
- Gather the kids and tell them about your friend Lisa the Leprechaun. She love rainbows, lucky charms cereal and most of all, filling up her pot of gold! She just called me in a panic because her gold was stolen, but she caught a lead that said the thief might have stashed all the gold at our gym. She asked if we could take a look around to see if we can find it. Would you like to help see if we can find Lisa’s gold??
- GAME EXPLANATION (simple version)
- When the coach says go, the kids can move around the gym looking for the gold
- make sure you give any boundaries or guidance (how high, how hidden, no pit, etc)
- be sure to clarify that this is gold hunting time – not gymnastics times, so please no swinging on the bars or jumping on the tumbletrack, etc)
- When they find ONE piece, they bring it back to a coach who has the pot/bucket, drop it in, and then can go back to look for more!
- Coaches can wander to help out or ensure everyone is being safe
- Continue until all the gold is found, OR….
- if you are running out of time and the kids don’t seem to be finding any more gold, re-hide 2-3 peices in easy spots when no one is look and announce you think there are 2-3 pieces of gold left! Make a big deal as they are found (counting down works!) and then have them come sit in front of the gold.
- if you are running out of time and the kids don’t seem to be finding any more gold, re-hide 2-3 peices in easy spots when no one is look and announce you think there are 2-3 pieces of gold left! Make a big deal as they are found (counting down works!) and then have them come sit in front of the gold.
- When the coach says go, the kids can move around the gym looking for the gold
- GAME EXPLANATION (hard version)
- SEGUE Add On — Explain that Lisa sometimes has trouble with trolls who like to come out from under their bridges every now and then to cause her trouble – so that’s probably what happened here – and then say “oh wow! actually, I think I see a couple over there!” and point to the doorway — where 3 coaches (dressed up as trolls, of course!!!) walk in. The trolls confess to making a mess of Lisa’s gold and they’ve hidden it from her here at your gym.
- When the coach says go, the kids are still running around looking for the gold and then bringing it back to the pot one piece at a time.
- The difference is — 2 of the the trolls have pool noodles and they will be running around the are too — but if they tag you, you are sent “under the bridge” (aka jail) — where another troll will demand as task be completed before you can escape (like singing the alphabet, counting by 2s to 50, 50 jumping jacks, etc).
- if you get tagged while holding a piece of gold, you can bring it with you to jail and continue to the pot of gold once they escape. You cannot pass it to a friend.
- Recommendation: place your jail the furthest safe space away from the pot of gold.
- Wrap the game up in the same way as the simple version
After the game…..
All this is optional – but SO fun and the kids LOVE it!!!
HIGHLY recommended, especially if you have 5-10 minutes to fill up before your next activity.
- Count the gold pieces
- Banish the trolls (if you played the harder version) & send them away…. I like to have the whole group shout “TROLLS! WE BANISH YOU BACK TO THE BRIDGE FROM WHERE YOU CAME!” all at the same time…. then have the Trolls back away hissing out the door they came through at the start! (see? hilarious!)
- Summon Lisa the Leprechaun…. usually by having the whole group shout “LISA THE LEPRECHAUN” 3 times! — And then she (a coach dressed up as Lisa!) appears!!
- Lisa comes over the group – thanks them profusely for collecting her gold and then offers to teach them a “leprechaun jig” as a reward! Afterwards, Lisa bids everyone farewell and heads off to find a new rainbow!
- PS – the jig can be as silly as you like — mine always looked something along the lines of this:
Then of course, wait for the coaches to come on back (after their brief stints as trolls or leprechauns – but naturally they have recollection of ever doing such a thing *wink wink*) and you can move along to the next activity!
And there you have it — the game of Hunt for Gold!
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